


Many Things Happening All At Once

by Starwardsfrost



Series: A Clever Heart [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Horcrux Hunting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-01 02:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14510079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starwardsfrost/pseuds/Starwardsfrost
Summary: The thing about Hermione was that, well, she was so bloody clever that nearly no one knew what exactly was going on under her wild head of curls. It wasn't exactly a secret, but she was a practical girl with so many responsibilities... she didn't have time for romance. That was for the future, after the world had been saved.And since there was a war on, people made assumptions and then put them out of mind. It took quite a while for the wizarding world to realize what had been there all along. This is that story.





	1. In Which Harry Potter Does Not Tell Lies, An Act That Later Proves To Be Both Exceptionally Rude And Ultimately Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my friends! This is my first HP fan fic. Please do let me know in the comments what you think. I don't bite.

The night that Ron came back, Harry watched the Slytherin’s locket spew frightening horrors into the late night air. He was sopping wet and beginning to freeze, but the sight of himself and Hermione together, naked and embracing, was nearly worse than the near death experience. After Ron stabbed the damn thing, Harry felt he had to say something.

“Ron?” Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to start another fight. “I don’t feel that way about her. Never have, never will.”

“Yeah?” Ron asked.

“But... she’s, er… I don’t think she’s the kind of girl who likes being fought over.”

“What are you trying to say Harry?” Ron said, his face turning red.

Harry considered his words. on the one hand he _was_ thrilled that Ron had come back. On the other, the very fact that he had left them in the first place revealed some problems which simply had to be addressed. He didn't particularly like talking about the group dynamic between himself, Ron, and Hermione, but he liked getting caught between their fights even less. For the sake of his two best friends, he decided to rip off the band aid.“I’m trying to say that she’s like my sister, and frankly she deserves better than a jealous nutter who left her alone when she needed a friend.” Harry spat out. He didn’t want to say it, but really. Hermione did deserve better. “Also, I think she, I don’t know, has someone back in the real world. She just understood too well when I was moping about Ginny a few weeks ago.” 

Realization dawned in Ron's clear blue eyes.“Oh yeah, Ginny." _Merlin,_ Ron thought, _I've been a total prick._ "You bloody broke my sister’s heart and I fuckin’ forget about it.”

“Yeah, Ron, Ginny. How the hell could you forget about her?”

“Dunno. Seems right stupid of me, now that I think of it.”

“Damn right.”

“You still love her?”

“Of course I do. I just didn’t want her to think she had to put her life on hold for me. If we get through this mess alive, then maybe…I dunno… maybe she’ll forgive me. I gotta hope so anyways.”

“So I’ve been reading all of this wrong?”

“‘Fraid so.”

“Ah.”

“And now..." Harry went on, "you get to apologize to Hermione for making her cry.” he said in a dry tone with only a hint of threat.

“Oh bugger.” Ron gulped.

But surprisingly, Hermione Granger did not murder Ron that night. She did hit him a bit, but Ron was willing to admit he deserved worse. He was happy just to have found his friends again.  
He considered what Harry had said that night in the forest, how Harry suspected that Hermione “had someone on the outside” that she wanted to be with. Hermione had always been a bit hard to read, seeing as she was always miles ahead of everyone else. But Ron wondered who it was that Hermione Granger fancied. It obviously wasn’t him.  
She was speaking to him again. But she eyed him warily behind Harry’s back and Ron would be surprised if she ever fully trusted him again.

Maybe it was Krum?

Or maybe it was some muggle bloke?

 _Or maybe,_ a voice in his mind that sounded distinctly like his bushy haired friend reminded him, _you should stop worrying so much about my hypothetical love life and worry more about Voldemort instead, as I obviously have chosen to do._


	2. Love and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron tried not to think about Hermione's rumored secret love for the most part. They had other things to worry about. But rather predictably, he figured it all out just as they were busy running for their lives and preparing to fight an army of Death Eaters. As usual, Ron Weasley had the _worst_ sense of timing.

Ron didn’t think about it anymore until they were at Hogwarts again and Neville was catching them up on what was without a doubt the worst year in Hogwarts history. Ginny climbed through the portrait and Harry had this look of equal parts joy and terror on his face. And crawling in close behind her were the twins, Lee Jordan, and Cho Chang. And in the midst of the chaos, Ron caught a glimpse of Hermione. Her eyes were locked on Fred and she had a shocked smile on her face. 

As Ron watched, his brother glanced around the Room of Requirement until he too locked eyes on Hermione. And a grin spread across Fred’s face so fast it gave Harry’s Firebolt a run for its money. Now Fred usually had a smile on his face, so this alone was not so unusual, but then Hermione started running towards Fred and wrapped her arms around his stomach in a tight hug. 

George complained, “No love for me, Granger?” to which Hermione responded by sticking her tongue out at him and making a face. 

Over her head, Fred asked softly “You alright, ‘Mione?”

She looked up at him. Fred couldn’t read the expression in her big brown eyes. “I missed you.” She said. She finally let him go and stepped back to stand by Harry. 

As if turning a switch, Hermione was back to her usual serious self. Harry, of course, was so wrapped up in the arrival of Ginny that he had probably missed the entire exchange. Ron, however, had put it together so fast his head was spinning. But there was no time for it. If they survived this, then he'd ask her why she'd kept this secret.

“Aberforth is getting a bit annoyed,” Fred said, shaking Harry out of his reverie. “Says his bar’s turned into a railway station.”

As Harry ran off with Luna to search for the diadem, Ron was struck by a brilliant idea. _Secret._ The Chamber of Secrets still had all those basilisk fangs from when Harry killed the beast in second year. 

“Hermione! Remember that basilisk Harry killed? It’s still here right?”

“Yes, but we can’t get to it, Ron, we don’t speak parseltongue.”

“But I think we can trick it. Come on!”

“This had better work, Ron!”

She ran off after him towards Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom on the third floor. In a move that surprised absolutely no one, it was flooded. Myrtle came out to see what they were doing. “What are  
YOU doing here?” she demanded.

“We have to get into the Chamber, Myrtle. Tom Riddle, the guy who murdered you is trying to destroy the castle.”

“Not on my watch.” Myrtle said, taking up a confident and furious stance that seemed utterly foreign on her. With that, she vanished.

“I guess she’s gone to get revenge?” Ron suggested.

“Well, she has good reason to.” Hermione replied.

After some embarrassing hissing noises, Ron finally got the chamber to open, and the two hopped on a broom and headed into the dark.

The basilisk skeleton was huge. Hermione ran towards it, yelling, “Alright, Voldy, let’s get this over with!”

She ripped out a long and vicious looking fang from the jaw of the beast and pulled the little golden cup out from a pocket. Her hair flew out around her face, seeming to expand the way it did when she was angry or excited or when she was about to do some powerful magic.

Kneeling on the ground, she raised the basilisk fang above the teacup.

The cup began to overflow with a dark liquid, like ink, that once it touched the puddles on the ground, continued to gush forth. Soon, the water was up to their knees, and Ron began to see things under the surface. Corpses, it looked like. Like a bogart, Helga Hufflepuff’s teacup produced frightening visions. Ron recoiled as he saw his own face under the water’s surface, his pale, eyes sightless. Splashing towards Hermione, Ron saw Harry, and Ginny, and Neville, and his parents, and Professor Lupin, Professor McGonagall. Dobby and Winky. In every direction the water filled the chamber, and everywhere he looked, there were the dead. People he never would have expected in Hermione’s nightmare, Penelope Clearwater, the Creevey brothers, Justin Finch-Fletchley. 

And on the floor in front of her, beside her parents, was a tall figure with red hair, pale as death. 

_You couldn’t protect us! You failed us!\_ The voices rang out, echoing across the water. Ron recalled the smoky forms the locket had projected. 

_It can’t be! I sent them away, they should be safe, not here!_ Hermione thought, panicking.

 _You couldn’t protect us!_ She heard it clearly in her mind, even though the lifeless bodies of her parents, of Harry, of Ron, of Fred, oh Morgana, no, not him!

The tears were streaming down her face now, running like rivers, and in front of her were bodies beyond count.

“It’s not real Hermione!” Ron shouted. He had to get through to her. Horcruxes got in your head and made everything look hopeless. “Come on! We aren’t dead yet, stab it!”

And Hermione looked at him. There were tears on her face and she looked dazed, as if Confunded. All at once, she recognized him and the illusion broke. She took the basilisk fang and brought it down on the damned teacup. 

There was a horrible shriek and all the wretched water drained away. Ron didn’t wait a moment longer. He picked his best friend up off the wet floor and dragged her onto the broom. As it started to move, Hermione threw up.

“Come on, it’s okay Hermione, let’s just get out of this place.” He said. She whimpered a bit and squeezed him from her seat behind him on the broom. He thought about how he had tried so hard in recent years to make her jealous, to hurt her feelings because she didn’t love him like he wanted her too. He realized then that she did love him, and had for many years. And he realized that Hermione Granger was a brilliant witch who loved all the people in her life with an intensity he only barely understood. By being jealous of every other person in her life, he had shamed the friendship they did have.

And he realized that whether she wanted him that way or not, he wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to never And that meant respecting her choices.  
They got out of the Chamber and Hermione seemed to have gotten over her ordeal. “Let’s go find Harry.” She said, and they ran out the doors into the battle.


	3. In Which There Is a Great Deal of Running, Many Explosions, and Much Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For ninety percent of the people present that day, it was the worst day of their lives.

After they found Harry again, who had figured out the location of Ravenclaw’s diadem, Ron realized that no one was evacuating the house elves. As soon as he spoke up about it, Hermione dropped her basilisk fangs to give him an enormous hug. Ron felt the last of the tension between them, something that had lingered ever since he had left her and Harry alone in the woods, vanish. She had forgiven him, finally, and he returned her hug.

“Oi! There’s a war on, remember?” Harry complained. 

“Right, sorry.” Ron muttered, a smile on his face.

“Can you ask Kreacher to get the rest of the house elves out of the castle, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Sure.” Harry grinned. “Kreacher!” he yelled. There was a loud pop and the elf appeared.

“What does Master want?” the old elf grumbled. Harry crouched down so he was looking Kreacher in the eye.

“There are house elves in the kitchens here, Kreacher. We need to go finish what Regulus died trying to do, so I need you to go find the house elves and help them get out of the castle safely. Can you do that Kreacher?”

“Yes, Master Harry sir!” the grumpy elf smiled and dissapparated with another loud pop.

The trio ran off towards the Room of Requirement. 

They emerged singed and bloody, with Malfoy and Goyle in tow, both wheezing from the smoke. As soon as they were on their feet, the two Slytherins ran off. Ginny was nowhere in sight, and outside the corridor were the deafening sounds of explosions and a full fledged battle. The Death Eaters had breeched the castle walls.

Hermione was saying something, but she broke off as they heard voices around the corner. Fred and Percy backed into view, fighting masked and hooded figures. Hermione ran forward to help, 

Harry and Ron only steps behind. Jets of colored light were filling the air and the man fighting Percy was hit in the chest with something purple. 

“Hello Minister!” Percy yelled. “Did I mention I’m resigning?”

“You’re joking, Perce!” shouted Fred as Hermione came up behind him and the Death Eater he had been facing collapsed under three separate stunners. “You actually are joking Perce. I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were-” and the air exploded.

As the stones of the wall came tumbling down, Ron saw a bright sphere of light expand outward from somewhere ahead, which caught the falling debris and sent it hurling away. Harry felt himself flying through the air and clung to his wand, eyes squeezed shut.

When that horrible moment was over, Harry saw through the dust and smoke that everyone else was on the ground. Hermione was swearing loudly and Percy was on the ground crying. Ron was staggering over at his brothers with dread on his face. But Hermione’s fluffy head of hair was not bent sobbing over the body of a boy she had promised another dance, when the war was over. 

She was frantically trying to stop the bleeding where his leg had been. “DITTANY! I NEED DITTANY! FREDERICK GIDEON WEASLEY YOU WILL NOT FUCKING DIE! I FORBID IT!” She screamed. And Fred woke up.

“‘Mione?” he mumbled.

Fred would recall in later years how when he blinked up at her, the relief bloomed across her face and she beamed at him.

“Did you hear me? I forbid you to die.” She said softly, poking a finger at his chest to emphasize her point. 

Fred smiled up at her. “Ok, ‘Mione.” And promptly passed out again. Hermione finally remembered what she was supposed to be doing, and called

“Accio Dittany!” and as it whizzed into her hands, she got to work.

But there were curses flying through the air and there was blood pooling on the flagstones. A monstrous spider the size of a car was crawling through the rubble towards them and Ron was the only one to notice it. He yelled, and causing Harry and Percy to look up. The blast from their combined spells burst the acromantula into smithereens.

“We have to get out of here!” Harry yelled. 

“Bloody where?!” Ron wondered. The whole world had gone mad.

Percy conjured a litter from somewhere and managed to get Hermione’s attention. Together, the four of them got Fred onto the thing and Percy levitated it. 

“I’m trying to stop the blood loss, but we have to get him to a Healer, and soon.” Hermione said, anguish in her voice.

“Got it.” said Percy. The young man took charge, giving clear instructions. “You make sure he doesn’t die again. Ron, Harry, I need you to make sure no one kills us when we make a run for it. I think they were setting up a hospital in the Great Hall.” 

The three teenagers shared a brief look and sped into action. Hermione ran beside the litter, holding Fred’s hand. Percy held his unconscious brother aloft with his wand, jogging behind it. Harry and Ron each took a side, wands out and at the ready. 

What followed was a nightmarish rush of running and dodging and shield charms and teamwork. Harry would recall how it was the only time that day where someone else took control and made the important decisions. Ron would remember the irony of fighting off a horde of acromantulas while trying to save the brother responsible for his lifelong fear of spiders. Percy would remember praying that by some miracle they might make it out alive. 

Hermione would recall very little except the fear, an all encompassing madness that had her feeling for Fred’s pulse at his wrist, but her own was too loud, there was too much happening, she could not feel it. There was a roaring in her ears and they were suddenly sliding down a set of stairs turned into an enormous slide. 

At the bottom of the staircase Percy finally saw a trusted face. “Professor McGonagall!” he bellowed. She turned to look. “We need help, Fred’s hurt, he’s losing too much blood!”

Her hair had come out of its bun, and her face was bleeding. She left the suits of armor to their task and rushed over to help. 

Together with McGonagall, they ran past Parvati and Dean, who were locked in battle with two Death Eaters. McGonagall shot something at Dolohov, which turned the Death Eater into a rocking chair. Another Death Eater tripped over the chair, landing so hard he broke it. Dean Thomas set the chair, and its unfortunate occupant, on fire.

“Nicely done, Thomas!” said professor McGonagall.

“Thanks Professor!” he shouted back. Peeves swooped past, cackling and dropping snargaluff pods on Death Eaters.

And so they went. It was slow going, and as soon as one enemy was down, there was another to deal with. McGonagall and Trelawney outright murdered Fenrir Greyback after he attacked Lavender Brown. Soon she was on a litter as well, and their party grew. There was not enough Dittany in the world for this, but Hermione had charmed the jar to never run out, so it kept coming. 

Percy busied himself with transfiguring bandages out of his tattered robes, and Hermione sent the cloths wrapping themselves around the bodies of Fred and Lavender. All of this was done while running. There was nowhere to hide.

Harry wanted to run after Hagrid. He wanted to help.

Everything seemed so hopeless and cold.

He barely noticed the dementors until they were all around, circling closer, drawn by the fear. But Professor McGonagall was there, and her little cat Patronus chased at the ghastly creatures. Ron said something, trying to get Harry’s attention, but it was no use. 

Then in a flash, a silver hare cut through the darkness, followed by a boar and a fox. 

Harry had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Luna, Ernie and Seamus came running up, following their Patronuses, and with some encouragement, Luna was able to help him conjure forth his own familiar stag. “We are all still here,” she said, and the words sank beneath his skin and gave him courage. 

But the moment was over in a heartbeat, and soon they were running from the giants battling overhead. He managed to grab Luna’s hand in the chaos, and heard Ron a few feet away. He didn’t know where everyone else was.  
—  
When the giants appeared, McGonagall thought she was going to see all of her students die. She had never been more terrified in her life. She tried to keep track of the kids in the chaos of it all, but with her focus on the two unconscious ones on stretchers, she lost Potter, Weasley, and Lovegood. She prayed they were together and not dead. 

As things stood, however, she did not have time to concern herself with anything more than getting the students in her care to safety. She herded the small pack back towards the castle, hoping to reach the Great Hall.

But that was too far. They needed refuge, and they needed it now. Minerva saw a place they could fortify against attacks. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would have to do.

They ran for the greenhouses. Seamus got the door open and Percy got the stretchers inside with a flick of his wand. Soon, all seven of them were safe inside the little shelter. 

“Where is Ron?” Percy asked, putting more panic into those three syllables than there had any right to be. Oh Merlin, not Ron. He thought.

“He’s with Harry and Her- wait, fuck, Hermione what are you doing here?” Seamus asked.

“Luna went with Harry. Not me.” Hermione said, not looking up from the bandages she was wrapping around her former dorm-mate’s shoulder.

“Ok. Luna, Ron, and Harry. Not the trio we were expecting, but still. They’re together. They must have made it to safety or we’d be hearing about it already.”

“Agreed, Mr. Finnegan. Now who has any ideas for how we make it back to the Great Hall?”

In the dark of the greenhouse, there was nothing but silence. A nearby explosion rattled the glass. Ernie looked around for an inspiration. 

“What about warding this place until the fighting dies down?” he suggested.

“Lavender and Fred won’t last that long.” Hermione said. “I think we’ll have to run for it.”

“Alright then. Let’s get going!” and they ran out of the greenhouse and back into the fray. They ran the whole way back to the Great Hall. The terrain, once so familiar, was near unrecognizable. 

Walls had been torn down, melted, and even Vanished by the curses hurled at them. Here and there were bodies, crumpled on the ground. Some were Death Eaters, but some were students and Order of the Phoenix members. They checked for signs of life, found none, moved on.

At long last they reached the Great Hall, and rushed Fred and Lavender up to the Healing station that Madame Pomfrey had set up for the wounded. She immediately took charge and set to work on the incantations that would stop bleeding. A student volunteer came over with pepper-up potions for those still mostly uninjured and pain potions for Lavender and Fred.

It was Arthur Weasley who saw them first, from the crowd of people doing a thousand different things. First he saw the back of Percy’s head, and felt relief that at least one son was alive. “PERCY!” he yelled over the noise. When his third son turned around, Arthur saw tear tracks on his face and broke into a run. Molly was close behind. What they saw was a nightmare.

Fred was too still. Madame Pomfrey was too serious. And there was so much blood. Soaked into bandages and dripping on the floor, on Percy’s hands, on Hermione’s pale blue sweater. “What happened?” Molly gasped. 

“A wall fell on us, Mum. Fred was closest to it, if Hermione hadn’t jumped on top of him… Mum, if he wakes up it’s all because of her.”

Molly looked over at the girl in question. There were bits of rubble in her wild curls, and she had one hand wrapped so tight around the edge of Fred’s cot that Molly could see the pale bones of her fingers through brown skin. Her eyes darted up to meet the older woman’s, and in a moment, Molly Weasley understood. 

This was the worst day of Molly’s life. It was worse than when Fabian and Gideon died, which had held the rank of ‘absolute worst day’ up until this very point. When Ginny had been abducted in her first year, Molly had felt her heart stop for a moment. When Bill had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback, Molly had barely survived it. When George had lost his ear, Molly had thought she understood being thankful that at least it wasn’t worse.

But today. Today every single one of her children were fighting in an all out war and she didn’t have words for how much worse this was. She saw the look in Percy’s eye and felt a sickening thankfulness that Fred would not be running back out to fight again. Fred may never run anywhere ever again. She realized this with some shock. 

Because her baby was not whole. His right leg ended just below the knee now, and nothing could wake him.

But when Molly Weasley looked in Hermione Granger’s eyes, she saw that this girl was having exactly as awful a day as she was. It was no comfort at all.

Molly looked around for Ron and Harry, who should have been near, but she couldn’t find them in the crowd. “Hermione? Where is Ron?”

“We lost him and Harry and Luna somewhere on the grounds, I don’t know what happened to them.” 

At that moment, Neville Longbottom and a few other students brought in Remus. Or what was left of him, at least. And then Tonks. She could have been sleeping, perhaps, but she wasn’t. The scream that came from Andromeda Tonks made everyone turn to look. 

Molly felt the as if the floor dropped out from under her feet.

She sat down abruptly, right on the floor.

Arthur wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.


	4. In Which We Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They couldn't find Harry.  
> Everyone who knew him knew what that meant. He wouldn't be found unless he wanted to be found.

Hermione was torn. She could be outside, making a difference in the fight. She should be helping Harry, the way she always did. She should be standing by his side, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave. Because if Fred didn’t make it, what was the point? 

She hadn’t told him how she felt. Not in so many words. She had cried on his shoulder a few times, snogged him thoroughly a couple times, but for all that this something between them had grown beyond the bounds of friendship they had always put it aside for some distant future as soon as the next catastrophe arose. 

And now his blood (and hers, and Lavender’s, and probably more than a few other’s besides) had seeped into her sweater and he was so unnaturally still and she was just trying not to fall to pieces on the spot.

She was just making up her mind to stand up and do something helpful when Voldemort’s voice came reverberating through the air with his horrible message. 

_No Harry. Don’t do what I think you’re going to do. Please._ she thought, knowing that even if she could find him in time, there was nothing that she could say to talk him out of turning himself in. 

Parties of volunteers were going out to search for survivors. She should probably join them. They would need all the help they could get. Neville was doing that. He was being helpful. 

Hermione spent several minutes lost in thought about how brave and competent Neville Longbottom had become. She lost track of events around her as people rushed about. She recalled the Horcrux visions from the Chamber of Secrets, how everyone she had ever loved had been floating somewhere in that water. But Fred didn’t drown, she thought, he burned. And Mum and Dad are safe in Australia. It’s everyone else I should be worrying about now. But then a familiar head of red hair came into view. Ron ran in, out of breath,  
searching the crowd for familiar faces. 

“Hermione! You’re okay!” he said, running over. As he got closer, he saw his parents hugging Percy and standing over Fred, who was finally not bleeding at least. His mum turned around frantically when he shouted, and soon he was enveloped in arms. Mum wouldn’t stop crying, but she was smiling to.

“Where is Harry?” Hermione asked.

“He was just behind me,” Ron said, looking around. “Fucking hell.”

“Where is Luna?” Hermione asked, getting more and more agitated.

“She was with him, I dunno…”

“Okay. Maybe she can get through to him before he does anything rash?”

“It’s Harry. Fuck. I never should have let him out of my sight.” Ron turned to run back outside. Hermione grabbed his hand. “Be careful.”

“I will.” He meant it. 

Molly watched as Ron ran out the door. She wanted to stop him, but Harry Potter was her son too, so she didn’t.

 

And Hermione waited for something to happen.

It was distinctly unlike her, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that she could be doing that would be any more useful than staying in this very room, and keeping an eye on Fred.

She busied herself with duplicating cots for the wounded, who were coming in quite quickly now. And she watched as the space set aside for the dead filled up even faster. 

Soon, the hour was nearly up. And Luna came back.

Harry wasn’t with her. 

She and Ginny were carrying a young girl who must have snuck back inside after the evacuation. Ginny looked furious. Luna could not meet their eyes. Ron stumbled in behind them. He looked like some vital piece of himself had been ripped out. There was despair in his eyes where there should have been sarcasm. Pain where there should have been the careless joy that had always come naturally to him.

He headed straight for her. Straight for Fred. Straight for his Mum and Dad and Percy and Bill and Charlie and George. He was wrapped up then, in so many arms, in all the love that he had been so jealous of before.

His mother was crying on him, and dad was covered in rubble and ash, they all were, but it just looked so wrong on him. Bill was the brave hero, and Charlie usually looked a bit scarred and scorched, and Percy, Percy was a brave man too. Ron was used to seeing himself and Hermione battle-dirty and injured. Mum had always been the fiercest person he'd ever known, just like Ginny was shaping up to be. But there was just something so wrong about seeing Dad in this state. Dad was not meant for war. He was meant for peace, and safety. 

This struck Ron just as much as when he had seen Luna Lovegood kill a man in the corridor earlier. It was just so fundamentally wrong.

But fundamentally wrong was just the way the world was right now. Ron had seen Little Loony Lovegood kill a man who had raised his wand against his little sister. He would have done the same if he had been close enough to act. 

Dad looked hard in a way that Ron had never seen him look before. Ron caught a glimpse of George's face through the press of bodies and wished he hadn't. There was a raw terror in his eyes that had Ron whipping his head around to see Fred on the nearby cot. He looked ghastly, but the mediwitch was still hard at work, doing something with an intense focus that was reassuring in a way words could not be. His chest was still rising and falling with breath. 

Mum wouldn't let go of him, but Ron didn't really want her to. 

He saw over his mum's shoulder how Hermione moved back to her seat on the floor beside Fred's cot. She watched his breath with halfway vacant eyes, and he could she that her mind had gone somewhere else for the moment, though if she was deep in thought or simply numb, he could not say.

He saw George sitting opposite her, holding his twin's hand, and tears ran down his face but he did not wipe them away. It was clear to Ron that they would not be leaving his side any time soon. Ron didn't know how much time had passed since the cease fire. He wondered if there was any point in hoping he would ever see Harry alive again. He thought about it, and came to the conclusion that he probably wasn't going to survive this war.

He knew the kind of men he and Harry had become. He knew that the chances were slim that either one of them would live to see another sunrise.

If he survived tonight, he would likely spend the remaining days of his life hunting that damned snake, and if he was lucky, he'd take it out before Voldemort got him. Then it would be up to someone else to kill old snake-face before the sodden bastard made another damned Horcrux. Assuming he hadn't already. Sure, Harry had said the plan was to split his soul into seven pieces, but once you only have a seventh of a soul, what's to stop you from taking it further? Voldemort was surely mad enough to try it.

And what would come after? Who would remain?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter! What did you think?  
> Kudos are always appreciated and comments will make sure the sun rises in the morning... very important as we are in the hour before dawn.


End file.
